Of Tooth Fairies and Lullabies
by graciebutterfliedgsr
Summary: Entry of the Geekfiction Summer Reading Ficathon.Prompt: W.H.Auden She had never known the childhood of most people and I was never there to comfort her. GSR


Author: Grace

Title: Tooth Fairies and Lullabies.

Rating: Mature

Spoilers: Any up to end of season seven, particularly 'Nesting Dolls' and 'Living Doll'.

Prompt: W. H. Auden

Disclaimer: Nope, I didn't get them for my birthday

A/N: This is my contribution to the abundance of post LD fics and my (very late) contribution to the Summer Reading Ficathon. Many thanks to chibs87 for the super-fast beta.

My sister never had anyone looking out for her, really. Our family wasn't a good place to grow up in. There were no picture books and banks of fluffy toys scattered here, there and everywhere like in most households with a young child. She was a lot younger than me and I was old enough when she was born to look after her.

I didn't. Or I couldn't.

I was too lost in my own little world that I resented my little sister as being simply an additional burden on a family that was already a sham. By the time she was born, the neighbours no longer called round the day after they heard raised voices and, usually, the smash that was breaking glass or china. I'm surprised that there was any plates left in the dresser by the time that she was a toddler.

It didn't always used to be like that, though. I can still vaguely remember a time when my parents didn't drink except for a glass of wine or two at dinner, or a pint down at the pub on game night. The slow descent into madness happened slowly, so that there is no one day on a calendar that I can point to and say; '_Yes, that day things were good and the next day we fell apart,'_

One of my therapists, or psychologists, or anger management psychiatrists or whatever, asked me if I blamed Sara for what happened to our family.

'_Blame?__ Why would I blame Sara? She wasn't even born when the problems started. She's my kid sister. She didn't do anything wrong.'_

_'Well, then, who do you blame?'_

_'I don't think blaming someone would accomplish very much. It won't change what happened, will it? Yes, I blame my father for drinking too much and dabbling in drugs, for corrupting my mother to do the same. I blame them for yelling at each other, beating each other up and scaring the shit out of two children. I blame me for breaking, and taking drugs to escape from it all instead of being there for her. I blame my mother for taking a kitchen knife and stabbing my father sixteen times when she was high on heroin or coke or something. I blame me for not sticking with my kid sister when she needed me. The one person I do not blame is her.'_

All I know is that somehow one or two glasses each at dinner turned to one or two bottles of wine and a couple of lines of coke.

I remember how innocent Sara used to be. When she was a little girl, she was annoying, I used to think. The only person I saw was an irritating brat who was forever pestering me for a fairy story or a lullaby. Eventually she stopped asking when on her fifth birthday she received the present of an evening in casualty with a couple of teeth. When she and Mum finally arrived home, Sara came to me and asked quietly;

'_Tom, a girl at school lost one of her teeth the other day. She left it under her pillow and someone called the Tooth Fairy took it away and left her two dollars. It's true! I saw them. Her mom told her that only good girls got presents from the Tooth Fairy and Father Christmas. But Dad said I was never good so will the Tooth Fairy leave me two dollars, will she?'_

What I should have done was reassured her and then slipped a dollar under her pillow that night. I wasn't poor at that stage, by any means. Robbery can be profitable provided that you are never caught.

What I did was tell her that the Tooth Fairy and Father Christmas were made up and that she couldn't have any money because we didn't have any money. I was in a foul mood because after Dad had hit her, I became his punch bag so that Mum, who was relatively sober and not high or stoned, could take Sara to Casualty and explain to the nurses about the door that had come to life and knocked out two milk teeth. They didn't believe her but they knew us so well they didn't question her.

Sara never got hurt again after that, until the last night.

She had the maturity of a girl twice her age and she seemed to have some kind of sixth sense when it came to understanding when Mom or Dad was about to flip. I called it her 'Fight or Flight' mode. Fight because at school she was always fighting. She used to hide the letters from the school but I found them and burnt them. We didn't need any more fuel for their anger. By the time Sara was ten, I was old enough to leave home and I was there so infrequently that there seemed no point staying, but some fragment of brotherly feeling kept me there, a though my presence would deflect anger from Sara.

She never seemed to need it. That night was the night I realised that she was no longer the little girl who wondered about the Tooth Fairy or had never had a lullaby sung to her as a baby. She was a young adolescent of twelve, with a terrifying intelligence and a seriously fucked up family.

That was the night that I decided to leave and Sara, for the first time outside school, decided to fight instead of fly.

Dad and Mom were half way through their third bottle and Sara was about to leave the table when Mom stopped her.

'_Don't go, Sara. Your brother has some news. He's leaving us. __Flying the nest.'__A hiccup.__ 'What do you think?'_

_Sara wore her 'deer-caught-in-the-headlights' look. '__Errm__...'_

_'Leave her alone, Laura,' Dad slurred. _

_'I'm perfectly capable of replying for myself, thanks Dad,' Sara had replied coldly, and I had frozen. _

_It might not seem very much, but in my family that small sentence was tantamount to detonating an atom bomb in our kitchen._

_'Leave her alone!' Mom had shouted. _

Things had escalated after that, until they were both shouting and ranting simply for the sake of shouting and ranting. Mom had still been holding the kitchen knife as they moved into their bedroom, Sara and I following simply because we couldn't look away. I don't remember when she started stabbing him or what immediately provoked it. It's funny, the things you remember and the things that you don't.

It was all over so fast. I don't even remember what said, but I remember his face. And Sara's. I never heard her speak a word after that, because when it was over Mom dialled 911 and sat in the kitchen, carving patterns in the tabletop with the bloody knife.

Sara ran to her room and then she was sitting on the floor next to me, clutching her backpack to her chest. That backpack contained all the things that she cared about in the world. A bunch of textbooks, science mostly, and other books. A couple of token things and a small box; like most twelve year olds keep earrings in from posh jewellers. Sara made her box herself out of cardboard and she kept her teeth in it. Some part of her, I think, always wanted to believe in magic and the Tooth Fairy, because it was nicer than whatever as going to happen to us now.

When they took her away, she didn't say goodbye and I haven't seen her since. I managed to turn my life around, but I never bothered to find my kid sister, even when I could probably have supported her.

Seven years ago I got a letter from Sara that had been redirected about ten times, telling me that she had moved from San Francisco to Las Vegas. She was a Crime Scene Investigator. Oh the irony. It had her new address and a tentative offer to renew contact.

I phoned her.

For seven years we talked on the phone occasionally, whenever one of us needed to talk. She told me about her boss, Dr Grissom. I Googled him and man! That guy is smart! Quite like her, really. He treated her like shit, in my opinion, but she thought the world of him and he helped her when she had the drink problem. I neglected to mention to her that it was his fault she had started in the first place.

They got together eventually, about two years ago, from what she said. Then, out of the blue a fortnight ago I got a call from him to say that there had been a problem. It was more than a goddamn problem! She had been trapped under a bloody car for twenty four hours by some lunatic!

I was on the next flight to Vegas.

She was okay, my kid sister. She had done alright. Her old man was good, too. Quite as crackers as she is of course, and quotes things that go far above my head. We were sitting in their sitting room in the evening and Sara seemed absolutely exhausted. She curled up on the sofa next to him and he quoted to her quietly;

_**"L**__**ay your sleeping head, my love, **__**Human on my faithless arm; **__**Time and fevers burn away**__**Individual beauty from**__**Thoughtful children, and the grave**__**Proves the child ephemeral: **__**But in my arms till break of day**__**Let the living creature lie, **__**Mortal, guilty, but to me**__**The entirely beautiful."**_

I had no clue, of course. Sara, though, smiled at him and said, like the know-it-all I now know that she is;

"W.H.Auden. Lullaby,"

So it turns out that my kid sister has found someone read a Lullaby to her after all.

A/N: Thank you for reading and please leave a review if you can. I know that this is really late, but I have honestly had a rather disrupted few weeks and I apologise.


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